See that red dot? It's a scarlet macaw!

I went to Costa Rica with only my phone for a camera and joked with other phone-only photographers about what we'd say when showing friends our photos. No casual tourist could have captured our best sighting of the macaws when they suddenly appeared high above the Tarcoles River, the sun flashing off their brilliant red, yellow, and blue as they flew quickly over the trees. Later we saw them perched in distant wild fig trees at Punta Leona Beach Resort on the Pacific coast.

The upper center red dot is the bird; the lower red dots are hibiscus.

 

Here's what they really look like, photographed in the same kind of tree. Because the photo is from www.upload.wikimedia.org, I think it's open source.

I was on a 12-day ecotour. Every time the guide pointed out a bird, reptile, or mammal, we went "Oooo" and "Ahhh." Every time the guide pointed out and talked about particular trees, we listened attentively and then asked each other, "What did he say that was?"

I got close to Green Violetear hummingbirds at 7,000 feet.

 

Tropical rainforest with iguana.

 

Returning home, I sighted a couple of these:

Temperate rainforest dog.

Canis messus.

 

They greeted me with three seconds of jumping excitement before turning to sniff the suitcase, needing no words to convey, "Great to see ya. What'd ya bring me?"